A Dying Turk
by Victor Sigil
Summary: A oneshot fic starring Reno. Tired of life, and reflecting on his dependent relationship with ShinRa, his judgment comes when a familiar nemesis comes knocking. READ AND REVIEW.


I don't know how much time I have. I can feel the blood pouring out of the bullet wounds as we speak. I'll be dead soon. So I might as well get this out. My last great speech to this world. An aria sung by a bleeding throat:

The idea behind karma is this: _what goes around comes around._

As a Turk, "karma" was conspicuously absent from my vocabulary. I was an Emissary of Death, one of several for ShinRa, Inc… once proud leading energy and automotive company of the world. Of course, they were involved in much more than that. It's almost part of the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. ShinRa wasn't just an energy manufacturer. They were also a corrupt political institution that seized power during that meaningless war with Wutai. The war that was staged simply so the massive amounts of weapons sold would buy them influence in their allied governments. After that, Wutai fell, ShinRa gained power, the old governments were forced out, and that was that. And of course, no government is without its enemies.

This is where I came in. The Department of Administrative Research, or Turks (nicknamed for the elite Janissary troops of the ancient Ottomans) were covert operatives that basically hunted down enemies of ShinRa and killed them by means of espionage and the like. It was a great job, and I made some great friends (and enemies) doing it. Most of my adult life, I had lived inside of the ShinRa microcosm, a symbiotic organism doing their dirty work in exchange for a means to further my vices. It was a nice arrangement. Sure, I had to send a lot of bloody clothes to the cleaners, but the company paid for it all.

But part of the problem of being the beneficiary of such a large corporation is that if it ever falls, so do you. AVALANCHE, these grassroots terrorists who opposed the use of Mako, had taken it upon themselves to destroy our reactors, and kill thousands of innocent people each time. So we fought back. My constituents had enlisted our services several times to knock them off. Each time, we had failed. Pretty soon, AVALANCHE had managed to kill most of the top executives, save for Tseng (my former boss) and the President, who were assassinated by someone else. They had torn our company down around our ears. We were pissed. And, of course, with no protection left (because it was really THEM that protected US, and not the other way around), we were fugitives. Criminals left alive only to answer for ShinRa's wrongdoing at the hands of an angry world. The three of us fled and went our separate ways…

…I guess that wasn't enough…

I wasn't expecting him when he finally came for me. In fact, it had been maybe five years since I had last seen him in the underground access tunnels of Midgar. Barrett Wallace, the leader of the now-defunct AVALANCHE, had probably been looking for me for some time. To him, I was the embodiment of ShinRa's evil, possibly because I had been the one who set the bomb that destroyed Sector 7 and killed his cronies. So it was me he was after. Why not? Out of me, Rude, and Elena, I was probably the guiltiest-looking soul.

So there I was, in my living room, smoking a pack of Lucky 44's, when the door opened. The morning sun cast a halo about him, but even through the blinding light, that silhouette was unmistakable. Being the gentleman that I am (cough-cough), I put my cigarette out and stood. "Been a long time, Barrett," I said smugly.

"Time ain't got the power to wash the blood offa yo hands, now, has it?" the big terrorist grunted.

"Suppose not, Wallace. We've both got blood on our hands."

"You realize why I'm here, don'tcha, Reno?"

"Well," I said, gesturing to the empty pizza boxes strewn about my house, "I'm sure you didn't come for the fine cuisine."

"Quit the wiseguy shit," he retorted.

"Look, Barrett. I didn't survive all these years by being a dolt. You came to kill me. And the honorable part of you demands that you face me like a man first. Is this what you did with Dyne? Oh, don't think I didn't miss any of the references in your file. Everything's there… was there…"

He nodded. "I came to kill you. Took a long time to find you, too."

"I'm very good at keeping a low profile, I must admit," I nodded somberly. "Well, I'm ready to go. Kill me."

"Just like that? Don't try to be funny. I know yo' smart ass has something planned."

I looked him in the eye, something only a man with his soul screwed on tight (or his brain unscrewed) could pull off. "After all this time? Do you really think I want to exist in a world that would kill me if I so much as stepped outside my door? I'm a shut-in, forced to order pizzas and have people run errands for me. Look at my skin. It's pale. I haven't seen the sun in a long time. Look at my eyes. I don't sleep well. I might as well have a big, black X scrawled on my forehead. I'm taboo. ShinRa was my lifeblood for too long. Don't you see the Mako in my eyes? They did it to me, too, you know, when I served in SOLDIER. It might as well be devil's horns. No, I want do die. You'd be doing me a favor."

"So that's it?"

"That's it. Kill me."

"I don't believe you, Reno."

I was getting angry now. "What the hell do you want me to prove? I don't want to fight you! I just want to end this honorably. Here!" I started stripping out of my clothes, until I stood naked before him, my janglers hanging low like wilted plants. "Here's all the proof you need! No weapon in reach, nothing up my sleeves, no possible counter-move to make. You want to shoot me? Do it, for God's sake! But know this: once I'm dead, I'm dead. Don't bother coming after the other two. Unlike me, they're trying."

"It sounds like we're on the same page."

"Sounds so."

Barrett, accepting the situation (I think he wanted something more action-packed and cathartic… sorry to disappoint), loaded the gun-arm, and pointed it at me. "We think alike in some ways. It's a shame it had to be this way, you selling your soul to ShinRa. You know, in another time and place, we mighta been friends, Red."

"I know. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

I didn't even feel real pain as the bullets tore through me. Just the impact. I was thrown backwards into my couch. Barrett left and closed the door…

So, here I am, bleeding to death. Having said my piece, I await judgment from whoever sees fit to judge me. I know the odds are against me, but I hope something somewhere grants me peace and forgives me my sins…

Amen…

_**fin**_


End file.
